A Day in the Life or The Wonderful World of Delegation

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Today I woke up late after a night out and involuntarily I started worrying about the overflowing inbox that would greet me and that I’d probably slept through a few important appointments. So, I threw on some clothes, grabbed my Macbook and ran over to my local Starbucks to begin my day (I can’t work at home for some reason).

When I opened my inbox it was surprisingly lean, with only a handful of emails that needed my immediate attention – the rest had been sorted, organized and categorized in one Google doc that my assistant set up.

I looked for an angry email about standing someone up or missing an interview and then realized, alas, there weren’t any. The stress that I’d been carrying in my shoulders since breakfast started to melt as I remembered “Oh yeah, Mary takes care of all of that now”.

What had happened was that during the night (when my virtual assistant, based in the Philippines, works) all of the things that would normally stress me out in the morning were taken care of. That means the appointments she was afraid I’d miss (since I hadn’t responded to her “alert” email) were rescheduled. The customer inquiries about Virtual Zeta (my business) that came in overnight and in the early morning had been taken care of by Mary.

So, how’d I get so lucky? Well my virtual assistant, Mary, is twice the woman most secretary’s who sit behind a desk – watching funny cat videos on YouTube and willing the clock to move faster – will ever be. The reason is two fold, first off Mary really wants to work – she’s a hard worker brought up in a culture of hard workers. It’s sad to say but a lot of the people here in 1st world countries have grown LAZY. You know that saying “it’s just so hard to find good help” – well it’s not, it’s just that most people are looking for it in the wrong places. On the other hand, people in 2nd and 3rd world countries jump at the chance for a fulfilling job and when they get one they actually work hard at it.

The second reason is that Mary works remotely, that means she isn’t stuck behind a desk for 8 hours a day. She can take a walk, move about, play with her children all while getting the daily work done that I assign her. She’s awesome and she does in 4 hours what a normal in-house secretary would do in 8. Mary is also VERY inexpensive when compared to a traditional in house secretary or assistant. She’s only $5 an hour and has over 10 years experience. The reason is because the cost of living in her country is FAR below what it is here so our dollars go much, much farther there.

Virtual assistants are the key to unlocking the wonderful world of delegation for startup entrepreneurs and lean businesses. They’re far cheaper than traditional workers and allow you to run a completely “virtual” business because when your team works solely from there computers – so can you!

Also delegation is much like opening a can of pringles, once you try it – it’s very hard to stop. You’ll start delegating more and more until you’ve honestly delegated the 80% of your day that bogs down your productivity and allow yourself to focus SOLELY on the 20% that is vital to your success.

I delegate everything from the planning of my next mini-vacation, to finding cheap rental cars for my trip to SXSW, to having my virtual assistant help my mother launch a new blog. Because of this my once 10 hour work day has been cut down to 4 and those 4 hours are the most productive hours ever.

So do yourself a favor, just try delegation once and see how much of a difference it makes in your life and your lifestyle design. Delegate one thing a day to a virtual assistant and you’ll see a jump in productivity and your own happiness (because you’re not stuck doing something you don’t want to do). I delegate almost everything that I don’t like to do, this leaves me with lots of time and energy to do fabulously at the stuff I love and am good at.

Once you start delegating your business and life to a virtual assistant, you’ll never go back, I promise.

What do you think of delegating your work? Do you have a virtual assistant?